CULTURE CLASHduring a disastrous Unite the Right rally which took
place on August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville to pro-
test the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee—and
the renaming of the park where it was located from
Lee Park to Emancipation Park (it was since re-
named again, to Market Street Park in July 2018).
The white supremacist and neo-Nazi protesters and
the counterprotesters clashed violently as heavily
armed right-wing militia loomed prominently over
the proceedings. Governor McAuliffe called in the
Virginia National Guard to end the rally even before
its official noon start time. Shortly thereafter, one
of the neo-Nazis, James Alex Fields Jr., drove his car
into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old
Heather Heyer, and injuring 35 others.
Fields was recently sentenced on state charges to a
second life sentence plus 419 years for his confessed
crimes. In a social media post she had written before
her death, Heyer said, “If you’re not outraged, you’re
not paying attention.” Two Virginia State troopers
and close McAuliffe family friends, Jay Cullen and
Berke Bakes, also lost their lives when their police
helicopter crashed outside of Charlottesville during
their surveillance of the rally.
After the tragedy, McAuliffe was unequivocal: “I
have a message to all the white supremacists and the
Nazis who came in to Charlottesville today. Our mes-
sage is plain and simple. Go home.”
In this excerpt from his book, BEYOND CHAR-
LOTTESVILLE: TAKING A STAND AGAINST WHITE
NATIONALISM, McAuliffe describes the events of the
morning of the Unite the Right rally and why he had
to act quickly.
McAuliffe’s book is disturbingly relevant given the re-
cent tweets by President Trump in which he told a group
of progressive Democratic congresswomen of color—
aka “The Squad”—to “go back” to their native countries.
He was subsequently condemned by the House for
“racist language.” And a few days later, at a political
rally in North Carolina, the frenzied crowd shouted
“Send her back,” referring to Representative Ilhan Omar.
We asked McAuliffe about the attacks on Omar and
the Trump rally chants. His response: “He [Trump] is
baiting us, and we should all stop talking about his racist
taunts. Let’s get back to healing and fixing our country.”TERRY McAULIFFE WAS THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA